Lifeboat Foundation

Neuroscientists Pinpoint Cells In The Amygdala Where Pain Hurts : Shots — Health News Researchers have pinpointed the neurons that give pain its unpleasant edge. By turning these neurons off in mice, the scientists relieved the unpleasantness of pain without numbing sensation.

Microbes are often seen as pathogens that cause disease and antibiotics have been used successfully to combat these foreign invaders. In reality, the picture is more complex. Most of the time we live in harmony with our commensal gut microbiota, which is the collection of microorganisms colonizing the healthy gut. Commensal bacteria regulate host biological functions, including skeletal health. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) studying osteoimmunology, the interface of the skeletal and immune systems, have examined the impact of disrupting the healthy gut microbiome with antibiotics on post-pubertal skeletal development. Their results, published online on the January 16, 2019 in the American Journal of Pathology, showed that antibiotic disruption of the gut microbiota induced a pro-inflammatory response that led to increased activity of osteoclasts.

“This report introduces antibiotics as a critical exogenous modulator of gut microbiota osteoimmune response during post-pubertal skeletal development,” says Chad M. Novince, D.D.S., Ph.D., assistant professor in both the Colleges of Medicine and Dental Medicine who studies the impact of the microbiome on osteoimmunology and skeletal development. “People have shown that antibiotics perturb the microbiota, but this is the first known study evaluating how that has downstream effects on immune cells that regulate bone cells and the overall skeletal phenotype. This work brings the whole story together.”

The post-pubertal phase of development is a critical window of plasticity that supports the accrual of approximately 40 percent of our peak bone-mass. Recent work by the Novince lab and others has shown that the gut microbiota contributes to skeletal health. To determine the impact of antibiotic perturbation of the gut microbiota in post-pubertal skeletal development, Novince worked with team members at MUSC and treated mice with a cocktail of three antibiotics. In collaboration with microbiome scientist Alexander V. Alekseyenko, Ph.D., associate professor in the Biomedical Informatics Center and founding director of the MUSC Program for Human Microbiome Research, they were able to show that antibiotic treatment led to major alterations in the gut microbiota, resulting in specific changes to large groups of bacteria.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cgb9lfKW_d4

Wouldn’t it be great to power your home without having enormous costs to starting a journey on the alternative road? Now, you can achieve that and also take care of your figure! The founder of the Free Electric hybrid bike, Manoj Bhargava, says that his invention uses mechanical energy in the most basic way in order to transform an hour of exercise into supplying rural household with energy for 24 hours. The mechanism is simple: when you pedals, a flywheel is put in action, which turns the generator and thus charging a battery. What better motivation to work out from now on than to power your own home without any costs whatsoever? Watch the video featured to see the bike in action.

Fresh Air: Transplant Surgeon Joshua Mezrich On ‘When Death Becomes Life’ : Shots — Health News Joshua Mezrich has performed hundreds of kidney, liver and pancreas transplants. He shares stories from the operating room in his book, When Death Becomes Life.

I’m excited to share my new article from Quartz on how science will make it safer and easier for a 50-year-old woman to have a child in 2028 than a 25-year-old woman today. #IVG and #DelayedFertilityAdvantage are game changers.

Women’s biological clocks drive human conception—and, in turn, human history.

Biology’s inflexible window of female fertility is generally agreed to be between the ages 18 and 35. Any older, and the risk of miscarrying, not getting pregnant at all, or bearing unhealthy children skyrockets. When the average lifespan for a woman in the Western world now hovers at around 80 years old, this means that less than 25% of her life can be spent easily (and safely) procreating.

Continue reading “Transhumanist science will free women from their biological clocks” »

Turns out good boys are also good for your health.

Thanks so much to Luanna Helena for having me on Creatively Speaking Radio to discuss Bioquark Inc. (http://www.bioquark.com) and nature’s clues for human regeneration, disease reversion, and age rejuvenation -

Also got to introduce our new mosquito / “ectocrinome” research program — (https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2019/01/02/bio…nefit.html) —

http://blogtalkradio.com/creativelyspeaking/2019/01/12/episode-79-ira-pastor

New York is in the midst of an outbreak of measles, a childhood disease that shouldn’t really exist in the U.S. any longer. On Tuesday, NBC News reported, New York health officials said the state has seen more than 100 cases of the vaccine-preventable disease since last September—a tally not seen in decades. The majority of these cases have happened among the unvaccinated.

Measles is a highly infectious disease that can be spread with a simple cough or sneeze. Its flu-like symptoms are usually followed by a distinctive, splotchy red rash that runs down from head to feet. And though most people recover without incident after a week’s time, measles can rarely cause more serious complications like hearing loss, permanent brain damage, and even death. These risks are more likely in the very young; measles can also cause birth problems in children whose mothers contract it while pregnant.

That all sounds great. And software is supposed to improve every industry. But when it comes to health care, it leaves one important question unanswered: Why aren’t we getting any healthier?

Venture investors are chasing breakout successes in digital health, but those investment dollars aren’t making people healthier.